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Thursday, June 17, 2010

Aggravation, and a Happy Ending. I Hope.

I hate Lewiston. Sorry, all you Lewistonians, but it's true. All of the streets in Lewiston are one way. Worse, they are all one way in the same direction..Get the Share on Facebook widget and many other great free widgets at Widgetbox!

Okay, so that's not literally true, but sometimes it seems that way. I headed off for Lewiston Refractories this morning thinking I knew where I was going. I hadn't been there in a few years, but I knew once I got to the general area, I could find it. HA!

It wasn't where I thought it would be. It wasn't a little further along than I thought. It wasn't the next street over in any direction, and nobody in the neighborhood ever heard of it. But I didn't imagine it; I still have some inswool I bought there in 2006. I remembered that they changed their name to INFAB, and searched a little more.

Finally I gave up and went into the offices of Oxford Networks, an internet service provider, and asked the receptionist to google it for me. Ha-ha, funny joke, they'd moved! I'd been driving around Lewiston in the traffic and pouring rain for almost an hour and I wasn't even on the right end of town.

When I did find them, it turns out they don't sell 3" brick. Is that really such a weird size? The fellow there told me I couldn't get it anywhere in New England, they had to special order it out of Maryland. Which they weren't inclined to do for eight soaps, and a couple of stretchers.

So now I am back home, figuring out a new plan. Sincce I don't want to dirve to Maryland, and I have plenty of 2 1/2 IFB. I think I am going to buy the additional hard brick I need and build the burner port/ flue layers of 2 1/2 inch brick. I was going to have to buy more hard brick for the stack anyway. The goofiness factor just went up a notch, but hey, there are no kiln police, right? As long as it works, I don't care if it looks like it was built by the cast of Ringling Brothers. I am off to re-do my brick count.

Of course, this all means I will have to return to Lewiston tomorrow, and I hate Lewiston. It'll be a little better now that I really do know where I am going.